Looping the Hen

Fine him for breaking the law of gravity!

Unbelievable!

Kelo Christmas Cards

I can't tell whether the Hartford Courant is unsympathetic to Ms. Kelo or not. One of the commenters states:"It's amazing anyone could be so vindictive when they've made so much money," said Gail Schwenker-Mayer, a supporter of the development project who received one of the cards.

Maybe Ms. Schwenker-Mayer would accept 3 times the dollar amount for her priceless diamond engagement ring, or maybe I could give her $40 for the stray cat she adopted 10 years ago, way more than 3 times its value. However, most people understand that some things have value above and beyond its dollar cost; for many, homes are one of those things. I guess some people don't understand the concept of priceless.

Stealing a woman's home and then thinking its ok because you gave her 3 times its dollar amount is making silk out of sows' ears. How much does New London stand to make by stealing those peoples' homes? Tens of millions; hundreds of millions? $400k is a paltry price to pay for such a return; if New London was trying to be equitable, giving Ms. Kelo a % of the projected revenue of the project would be a more adequate method of determining her home's value. Because if it wasn't worth more than $400k, they wouldn't have taken it.

I for one echo Ms. Kelo's anger, and think she is justified calling down whatever she chooses upon the Thieves of New London.

Kelo's Bigger, Uglier Brother

This almost made me physically ill. It is sanctioned blackmail and a visual level corruption. Unbelievable.

Negative Wealth

Not much new here, but I thought the term 'negative net worth' was interesting. You can be the poorest person in the poorest country in the world, and actually have more worth on a straight-line continuum than someone we would consider 'rich', due to the fact that a rich person's debt can often be more than his assets. Really, it is at this point a person's income that is the true disparity, because the rich person's potential income over a period of time should outweigh his real debt, which at some point should flip to assets. There are some other quality of life considerations as well, obviously, but not this post.

A Breath of Clean Air

We're never quite as bad as people seem to want to portray us. I still believe it is because the richer we get, the more time people have to worry about their environment. To get there, we just need to allow wealth to build as it may.

Working toward a better environment may actually mean...working toward a better environment.

Game Your Pain Away!

Honey, the list of uses just keeps growing!

For those inclined, Child's Play really is a great charity, and the folks at Penny Arcade are the definition of civic-minded gamers and set a great example of putting their money where their mouth is.

Who knew?

Interesting. The Democrats aren't even in office and already we're getting smaller government. Sure, the article is slightly slanted against the Repubs, but coming from the Post that's not surprising. I'm guessing that still doesn't alter the basics of the article, as the Right hasn't been great on the size of government since...well, since they gained all the power.

Now, if only we could go another 10 years without any earmarks or any increases in the size of government and the budget would be at about the right size.

Queen of Jewels

Yay, Kaylee-blog. Her home here.

The Nightmare at Christmas

So are we bad for planning on going to see a horror movie on Christmas?

Elf Yourself

Apparently one of the new hot things this holiday. via Officemax and Elfyourself.

My *cough* ex-friend Billie is responsible for this.

Down with Sony

Good news for Microsoft and their HD standard here.

More good news for Microsoft (and Nintendo) here.

It has become something of a ritual to miss production marks for a new console. Sometimes it looks like it is to drive buzz, such as the Xbox release last year. However, with Sony coming neck-and-neck to the market with Nintendo's Wii, they needed to avoid this.

It sounds like all Playstation 3's aren't sold out in the retail channel (either that or they greatly missed their target production), which I have to take as terrible news for Sony, as they insisted their $500-$600 price point wouldn't scare away consumers. Microsoft had a banner month for the 360, and Nintendo had a better launch than they hoped, selling more than double the number of PS3's.

I don't honestly believe any of this forbodes doom for the Sony juggernaut, but I can hope.

Firefly Redux?

There are a lot of bad MMOG's out there, but I hope this doesn't end up being one of them.

Mama B and Daddy B and Tammy and me and the Tarpster could all play and be geeks together!

Carma

Well, I must have been mean to someone this weekend, and whoever that was, I apologize. Bad Tobias! The Karmic Train stopped by and I woke up this morning to someone having egged my car and let most of the air out of my tires; I'm still hoping they're not punctured, especially as they are apparently the Rolex of tires (not that I would know) and run around $400 each or something ridiculous. I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry!

Yes, as always, things are mostly my fault. Because my proximity alarm is as sensitive as...well, I probably shouldn't illustrate just how sesitive it is on a family website...anyhow, it's very sensitive, so I took to just leaving it off. I've had my car nearly 14 months now and no one has ever bothered it at home. I'll have to dig out the alarm clicker this evening and make sure I park well clear of anything, including the curb, because if I am within a foot of anything with it on my car chirps every 60 seconds or so.

Other than that lovely piece of news, things are mostly good. I have the coolest fiber optic Christmas tree; Tammy even took some of my little people and put little ribbons on them and hung them up! Although we're not going to make it up to Connecticut after all this year; Tammy has had some horrific car problems (3 separate and fairly big issues over the last week) and I got hit with a special assessment on my condo for a bunch, so a trip would just exacerbate the financial impact, especially at Christmas. So, that means 11 days of video games and ramen noodles...yay, I'm back in the 90's! Err, I mean 9 days of video games and plenty of time with my significant other! How about 5 honey?

Anyhoo, I'm turning geek, so I'll run!